The former governor of Lagos State and Chieftain of the bourgeois opposition party All Progressives Congress (APC) Bola Ahmed Tinubu wrote an article which appeared in many national dailies with the tittle : " Slump in Oil Prices: A Progressive Way Out". The two main lines of arguement of the article were criticism of fiscal austerity and monetary tightening and a prescription of fiscal and monetary expansion, which in Nigeria means decoupling fiscal spending from dollar receipts.

Before going into critique of Tinubu's letter, it is important to give some background against which the bourgeois politician wrote. Nigeria, as a monocommodity economy, depends on oil exports for 90% of her foreign exchange earnings and 80% of government revenues. Over the last four months, crude oil has lost more than 30% of its price; from the June peak of $115 per barrel to less than $78 per barrel, below the benchmark price for Nigeria's 2015 budget. Nigeria's excess crude account balance fell by twice as much, losing more than 60% of its value; from $4.1 billion to $1.4 billion at the moment. Naira lost more than 7% of its value so far this year. The fate of Nigeria's economy will not be decided internally; events on global level are the decisive factors.

In the last four years, suicide bombing has become one of the avowed weapons of the right wing Boko Haram insurgency campaign in Nigeria, especially in the northern part of Nigeria. In the past, we have had suicide bombers detonating strapped bomb in the Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, Niger, Bornu, Adamawa, Yobe, Plateau, Kaduna and Kano States killing hundreds of innocent people in the process. Whereas in most of the instances where bombs were sporadically detonated, the political colouration and perceived intents were vague in contents as per those targeted, the July 23, 2014 twin-suicide bombings in Kaduna state and the July 27 & 28, 2014 Kano carnages appeared to have a different colouration from the usual suicide bombings. Musa Atiku places the two events into proper perspectives.

In the last four years, suicide bombing has become one of the avowed weapons of the right wing Boko Haram insurgency campaign in Nigeria, especially in the northern part of Nigeria. In the past, we have had suicide bombers detonating strapped bomb in the Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, Niger, Bornu, Adamawa, Yobe, Plateau, Kaduna and Kano States killing hundreds of innocent people in the process. Whereas in most of the instances where bombs were sporadically detonated, the political colouration and perceived intents were vague in contents as per those targeted, the July 23, 2014 twin-suicide bombings in Kaduna state and the July 27 & 28, 2014 Kano carnages appeared to have a different colouration from the usual suicide bombings. Musa Atiku places the two events into proper perspectives.

The abduction by the Islamic fundamentalist Boko Haram group of over 200 schoolgirls in Chibok in the north of the country and the way the Nigerian government has reacted to it has highlighted the truly corrupt nature of the regime. It has revealed its utter cynicism in the face of the real suffering of the masses.

The past two decades have witnessed a barrage of propaganda against Marxism and its revolutionary heritage. Since the collapse of Stalinism – not socialism, but a monstrously deformed caricature of Marxism - from one front to another the mainstream media, universities, professors and historians have gone on the offensive to discredit Marxism. We examine here the most common myths about Marxism and socialism.

Having gone through the school of PDP for uninterrupted 15 years, 15 years that had witnessed 8 General Strikes, historic mass uprising of January 2012 and the heroic ASUU strike in the midst of developing economic crisis, overwhelming majority of Nigerians have learnt enough lesson to completely reject and turn their back on the ruling Party. The social base of this party has not only eroded, we are witnessing a major implosion-taking place before our very eyes.

Capitalism has a system cannot do without exploitation and discrimination. As the crisis of the system bites harder, the ruling class tends to look for scapegoats to blame for all the woes they place on the shoulder of the masses of the society. They try to divert people’s attention from their daily traumatizing suffering which they created in the first instance. They consciously exploit the cultural backwardness of the society. It is in this context that the anti-gay law recently passed in Nigeria can be clearly situated.

The third congress of Joint Action Front (JAF) held on 18 and 19 January 2014 with the main theme “Alternative Political Agenda to Rebuilding Nigeria”. JAF Affiliates, JAF sympathizers and special guests, attended the congress. Some of the guests who graced the historic occasion include President of Academic Staff Union of the Universities (ASUU), leadership of Trade Union Congress (TUC), Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), representative of College of Education Staff Union (COEASU) and Communist Party of Benin Republic (PCB).

This is a report from a Workers’ Alternative activist who visited Maiduguri twice some weeks ago and stayed there for two weeks cumulatively in collaboration with a working class activist on the ground in Maiduguri . The report gives a true insight into state of things in this hot zone.

After a rather long rough journey; journey full of resistance and high determination from those privatizing and the workers who are to bear the brunt, power sector in Nigeria finally got privatized on the 1st of November, 2013. Decades of suffering by Nigerians, who cannot understand why this country still finds it so difficult to generate enough power to power its economy and make life meaningful for its citizens has actually made Nigerians become so desperate to get out of this anomaly.

On Monday, 21/10/13, the academic staff of Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, AOCOED, Ijanikin, Lagos, organized around Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union, COEASU, organized a congress of their union at the college’s main auditorium. The union is the equivalent of ASUU in universities.

Written by Workers’ Alternative Editorial
Friday, 25 October 2013 19:14

The congress of the Nigerian section of the IMT was held on October 19-20, with a total of 20 comrades participating from different parts of the country. The presence of comrades from the north was a source of excitement and enthusiasm for all those present.

“that tendency which is growing up together with the revolution, which is able to foresee its own tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, which is setting itself clear goals and knows how to achieve them.” (Trotsky, On the Policy of the KAPD, Speech Delivered at the Session of the ECCI, November 24, 1920)

Perspective is not an oracular statement, and nobody has a crystal ball to predict exactly the direction of event. However, perspectives give an idea of the way events are likely to move in the future. In Drawing up perspectives for the Nigerian Trade Union Movement, it is highly imperative to critically look at the present state of the Trade Unions and also study the objective conditions that led to this present state. Trotsky said seventy three years ago, “there is one common feature in the degeneration of modern trade union organizations in the entire world: it is their drawing together closely to and growing together with the state power”. This assertion is much more correct today than seventy three years ago when it was written. The situation in the ex-colonial countries like Nigeria is even much more terrible. This is because the ex-colonial countries are under the sway not only of native capitalism but of foreign imperialism.

What are the origins of Boko Haram? Poverty and lack of education? Absolutely not. Because some parts of the South are not any better off and yet there is nothing like Boko Haram in those areas.

There are militants and ethnic militias everywhere in the country but nothing close to the dramatic violence and barbarism of Boko Haram; from suicide bombings, to assassinations of clergy, bombings of churches full of worshipers, motor parks, media houses and the burning of schools and other infrastructure.

State of Emergency: intensification of an attack on already terrorized masses

Conspicuously missing in President Goodluck Jonathan’s speech of Tuesday 14th May, 2013 where he declared an indefinite state of emergency in three Northeast States of Nigeria, is the fact that he had earlier already declared states of emergency in two of the present three states since December 31 2011. The states of emergency in these states, Borno, Yobe, Plateau and Niger are yet to be called off.

The most important question is if the earlier declared emergency rule had not worked, what will make this one work, as the conditions remain the same.

The TV is full of the sycophantic outpourings of right-wing commentators and politicians about the sudden death of Margaret Thatcher. The Establishment has rallied to praise her. The Queen has sent a personal message of condolence to the Thatcher family. The news is full of tributes, portraying Thatcher as some kind of champion of freedom and liberty. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. She was a champion – a champion of capitalism, the ruling class, and all it represents.

The situation in both Pakistan and Nigeria are quite similar. They are both underdeveloped neo-colonial capitalist countries in crisis. This article is from a Pakistani Marxist, Lai Khan,and the experience which he document is quite similar to that in Nigeria. In Nigeria, there has been a qualitative raise in bloody sectarian violence.

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The arson and burning down of 178 houses in the night of 8th and 9th March in Joseph Colony, a Christian neighbourhood near Badami Bagh, in the heart of Lahore is yet another fanatical incident that reflects the malaise afflicting the Pakistani society. A vigilante mob carried out this act of savagery on the pretext of allegedly blasphemous remarks made by a Christian youth in a drunken fracas with a Muslim friend.

The Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, once said that it was not rational to start a bank run but rational to participate in one once it started. These words of wisdom have once again become reality.

It is a week now since the death of Hugo Chávez and there are still kilometer long queues of people coming from all over the country to pay their last respects. Presidential elections have been called for April 14 and the mood is turning angry at the provocations of the oligarchy.

It is very difficult to convey even a fraction of the outpouring of grief and emotion which Venezuela has witnessed in the last week. According to some accounts, as many as two million people came out to accompany the coffin, as it was being transported from the Military Hospital to the Próceres where it was to be displayed. The route is around 8 km long and it took the funeral procession over 7 hours to cover it.